In recent years, the demand for a compact and large-capacity information recording and reproducing device (storage device) is rapidly expanding. Among them, a NAND type flash memory and a compact HDD (Hard Disk Drive) have achieved the evolution of rapid recording density and have come to form a large market. Under such situation, a couple of ideas of a new memory aiming to greatly exceed the limit of recording density have been proposed. A non-volatile semiconductor memory that uses a resistance changing material having a low resistance state and a high resistance state has been drawing attention.
In such non-volatile semiconductor memory, a voltage pulse is applied to a resistance change film in a memory cell to repeatedly change the low resistance state and the high resistance state, where data is recorded with the two states corresponded to binary data “0” and “1”. In this case, enhancement in the properties of the memory cell such as the properties of change (set) from the high resistance state to the low resistance state and the change (reset) from the low resistance state to the high resistance state is anticipated. For instance, operation in which the switching current (Iset/Ireset) of the resistance change film (resistance change layer) is reduced is desired from the standpoint of low power consumption.